


Homesick Comfort

by botgal



Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck
Genre: Alien Culture, Comfort, Comfort No Hurt, Crying, F/M, Homesickness, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, and her new alien friend/potential crush comforts her, in which it's hard on a 14 year old girl, joey experiences weird alien romance, to be shot across space and land on Alien Murder Planet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 10:04:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12340518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/botgal/pseuds/botgal
Summary: Joey muses on her home that she was shot away from and feels a strong wave of homesickness.Xefros tries to help.





	Homesick Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> *opens the dumpster I reside in just long enough to throw this at all of you*

It's at times like this when you're really starting to miss home.

It hasn't been easy, just landing on this alien planet like this, with no inkling as to where you are or how you might ever manage to get back to where you're supposed to be. You've adapted, sure, but that doesn't mean you like it any more than when you first landed. Put frankly, this planet is kind of horrible and you wish you'd never been shot through stars by a giant sci-fi snake portal to crash land on it.

Just about the only thing you've found you enjoy on this whole stinking planet is your new friend. Xefros could certainly be kind of a doormat to the point it annoyed you, and you at times felt a sense of deja vu that brought you back to your toddler days of having to stop Jude from walking into a ditch with how you interact at times. But he was a good person. And honestly, he's probably being the best friend you've had in your life.

This was perhaps not saying much considering he's likely the only friend of yours who wasn't Jude's friend first and who hasn't immediately gotten far more interested in someone else, but semantics are semantics. Xefros is nice, and he's your friend and you're trying to help each other right now. Because that's what friends do for each other.

At the moment you're just waiting for him to return from the settlement you both passed with some food. For both yourself and the animals. His lusus Treetoe seems to be munching on some leaves from a tree, so that at least cuts down on the need for sloth treats for a bit to stretch them out longer. You assume that Dammek's lusus, who you have taken to calling Mononoke, will be eating whatever can be scavenged. Given that it's apparently omnivorous, you don't care to think on what that might entail for the sake of your views on the cuteness of the creature.

As for you, you're biding your time waiting for Xefros by tending to the campfire you had built yourself. Adding sticks and such that you'd found until you were certain it would be a good fit for a fire to warm up by. While you wait stewing in your melancholy about home.

“Hey Joey.” You look around when you hear the familiar voice calling your name, and smile when you see Xefros standing there at the entrance to the cave the both of you have chosen as shelter when day comes.

“Hi Xefros,” you greet him in turn. “Any luck?”

“Yeah. I got us some grubloaf and a curded lusus milk block.” Neither of those options sound especially appealing, but you've trusted Xefros so far that he wouldn't try to feed you something that had a bug as any ingredient in it. He walks up to you and hands you down a small loaf of what looks like bread, while he holds in his other hand another loaf and what looks like a block of yellow cheese.

You take the 'grubloaf' from him and, after a quick examination to confirm that there are no _actual_ grubs hidden anywhere in this piece of food, thank him for it. You break off a small piece and crumble it into small bird-sized bits. You then proceed to remove Byers from your pocket and set him down to begin his feast, while you yourself sigh and bite into the food. It's decent, tastes just like normal bread should and you're grateful for that small semblance of normality.

Xefros settles in next to you up against Mononoke's soft fur and starts digging into his food. From elsewhere he produces a small block of what looks to be cheese. You suppose that, if they have milk, then there should be no real reason that they shouldn't have cheese as well. He splits the cheese and hands half of it to you, which you gratefully take and begin eating in alternating bites with the bread.

With the small fire in front of you and the feeling of warmth with the stars up in the sky, it feels almost peaceful, even on this crazy planet. Your mind wanders, and you drift off back to more pleasant memories from home. Camping out on the front lawn of the estate while the tree lacked anything resembling a house in its' branches as Jude was too young to want one yet, and all it had to its name was an old tire swing (back at an age when it seemed as improper for your tree to lack a tire swing as it would be for a gentleman to lack a monocle). With you and Jude crammed up together while you roasted marshmallows over a small, safely contained fire. While your babysitter, sober for once, entertained the both of you with spooky stories befitting of a makeshift campout like yours while you both anticipated the terror of her cheap scares as any children could...

You don't even register that you're crying until you realize you can feel wetness on your face and your last bite of weird alien bread and cheese catching in your throat. You manage to choke it down before you put your hand to your mouth. Trembling as all at once the sheer weight of your sudden isolation from your home drops onto your chest and stutters your breathing.

“Joey?!” Xefros is looking at you with a panicked look. “Wh-what's wrong? Did I mess up? Do you not like the food.”

“No,” you half sob, still shaking as you hold onto yourself. “No, Xefros, the food is fine, I just... I just...” You breathe in shakily and double in on yourself as you start to lose your grip on your own words. “ _I just really miss home..._ ” The tears come on in full now, as you hug yourself for comfort in the wake of this strange alien nightmare planet you've landed on. With nothing but some dance shoes, some spice, a couple of useless batteries, a flashlight, your brother's pigeon, and a pocketful of _stupid_ _pogs_ to remind you of what you were forced to leave behind. Stuck on a planet of weird aliens with weird customs when the last memories of one of the only people who cared about back home was of him begging for you to not go near the thing which had sent you here.

You can hear the concerned rumblings of Mononoke, who's curling around in trying to lick your face of tears, but it's not doing much. No matter how much you love animals, just a few licks isn't going to help you no matter how much you want to bury your face in his fur and forget how miserable you are.

Then you feel a pair of arms pull you in, and before you know what's happened you find you're being held in a firm, warm hug. A hug with Xefros.

“X-Xefros?” you get out, sniffling against your tears. “What are you doing?”

“I... You just seemed like you needed a hug,” he replies hesitantly, awkwardly patting your back while your face is pressed into his chest.

You muse to yourself a bit, perhaps in your mild shock mixed with your misery of being homesick. You've never hugged someone outside your family before. You don't count your babysitter, of course, she's been around long enough that you may as well consider her some form of aunt or cousin, if not an older sister (even with her many flaws).

It's... not that bad. To hear Xefros talk about them so much, you had assumed he was really into sports, so perhaps the strength of his arms that you felt encircling you shouldn't come as much of a surprise to you as it does. His chest is broad and honestly a lot more firm and less soft than perhaps you thought it might be. But also... it's warm, and kind of nice. You'd think boys would smell gross because of all that you expect they would get up to, but it's not like that at all. A little sweaty, maybe, but really not that much different than yourself at the moment.

More than anything, though, it's comforting. You're still crying, of course, but you're not really in the mind to be thinking about how you're probably getting tears and snot in his shirt. It's nice to cling to someone and just cry it out. Cry it out long and hard like you've never been able to cry but for nights alone when you're clinging to pillow while besieged by crippling loneliness. And it just feel good. Good to keep on doing that crying as you feel his hand patting your back and occasionally running through your hair.

After a while, you've finally calmed down a bit, and you're just left sniffling after you've cried yourself out for the moment. And you're still holding on to him. It's really amazing how much better you can feel after a good cry. Even better, apparently, when you've got someone who you can have a good cry while being hugged by them.

Something niggles at the back of your mind, though, and it doesn't leave you alone. Until it clicks in you as if someone suddenly flicked a light switch in your brain, and you shift around in his arms until you can look up at him.

“... Hey, Xefros?”

“Yeah?” he replies in a questioning tone.

“... Isn't this, like, that pale thing for you. I mean, I don't mind, it's nice... but weren't you worried about that?” You still don't feel like you want to let go, though.

“... I mean, if you need it, then I don't mind... No, I mean, if it helps, I'm happy to,” he finally sounded firm in saying. “If it's not awkward for you, I mean. If you don't want it to be like pale stuff, it doesn't have to be. I don't want to make you think it has to be anything you're not comfortable with.” He's blushing despite his words, but you think it's sort of endearing in your own tired way of thinking it.

“No, I... I think I needed this.” You lower your head and nuzzle up into his chest again, relaxing against his comforting closeness. Even if this is some sort of weird alien romance thing... you can honestly say you feel like you really needed this. At least stranded on some alien planet with no way to get back, the only one you can rely on being an alien... you know you've made a friend. One who's apparently willing to do a weird alien romance thing to help you feel better despite some awkward situations occurring since you two have gotten to know each other.

Heh, if this is an alien idea of romance, maybe it's not half bad...

 


End file.
